This is not a spoiler alert! I haven’t finished yet; I’m just about at the end of Chapter 5, with two further chapters to go. I’m not about to reveal how it ends, either, because (a) I don’t want to spoil it for you and (b) what if the closing chapters end up in a different overall order?

I’m thinking about structure, really. When you’re writing about a subject that had a rise, a heyday and a decline, it’s going to be hard to end on a high. I’ve been pondering about which order to place the last three chapters in the book, and it came down to this:-

Option 1: Up-Down-Up (and Down)

• Antepenultimate chapter: Hey look, they also did this!
• Penultimate chapter: But they missed a trick here.
• Ultimate chapter: Even though they also did THIS (and I find it so exciting), their heyday was over.

Option 2: Up-Up still Higher but Peaking – Down

• Antepenultimate chapter: Hey look, they also did this!
• Penultimate chapter: AND they engaged with this! It’s really exciting, but perhaps the writing was on the wall.
• Ultimate chapter: And they didn’t do this. Would it have made a difference? Possibly not, in view of the wider context.

My instinctive feeling is that the Rise-Fall curve of the second option is going to be more satisfying for the reader. Indeed, as I was writing this post, I stumbled across a website about ‘story arcs’, with six different arc shapes being outlined. Admittedly, we’re only talking about my last three chapters, and I’m writing non-fiction, not a story with a plot. (In a previous existence, I wrote and published over thirty short stories, so I do have an interest in the genre, in a retrospective kind of way. But that’s irrelevant today.) Nonetheless, if we’re thinking about arcs, then …

My first option isn’t even described, so it can’t be a recommended option! Let’s call it the Tennis Ball Bounce. On the other hand, my second option is a classic ‘Icarus / Freytag’s Pyramid (rise then fall)’ arc.

https://thewritepractice.com/story-arcs/ (Joe Bunting, ‘Story Arcs: Definitions and Examples of the 6 Shapes of Stories’

I think I’ve convinced myself. Option 2 it is! Watch this space.